With all the fear, anger and bigotry America has witnessed in the controversy over the flood of young immigrants pouring across the border with Mexico, the possible move by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany's Catholic Charities to house some of these refugees is truly a bright spot in an ugly debate.

It's heartening that the diocese is looking to provide a refuge here for at least some of the thousands of children who have fled violence in their home countries. It would be all the more encouraging if this endeavor served as an example to the rest of the nation — strategically and spiritually.

The challenges posed by the huge influx of unaccompanied foreign children has, regrettably, cast a spotlight on a darker side of America, a country that has long wrestled with its heritage as a nation of immigrants. We cherish the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty even as we argue about how much of the world's tired, poor, wretched homeless we can accommodate, or care to. We've come to prefer those ancient lands send us their storied pomp — their rich, their tech-savvy, their MDs and Ph.D.s, yearning to make a buck.

To turn away these tempest-tossed children — to greet them with jeers to go back where they came from — is heartless. It's a bitterness fueled, yes, by worries about the public cost, the burden on schools, the competition for jobs and other practical concerns. But understandable — and solvable — worries are stoked into rage by opportunistic politicians and rabid talking heads in search of contributions or votes or ratings.

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Catholic Charities has put in an application to serve as a host for some of the children, and is talking to its counterparts in other upstate cities about how they might do this more broadly.

The numbers can sound overwhelming — 63,000 children have crossed the nation's southern border since last fall. But taking in a few children here, a few children there, would not be a huge burden on any one community. And if that approach is repeated around the country, it could substantially relieve the pressure that is, understandably, sparking deep concern in border states.

This is, of course, not a solution to the immigration debate that has dragged on ad nauseam in Congress for years. America needs a comprehensive, realistic approach that addresses the problem of people, drugs and arms going back and forth across the border. It needs to crack down on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants and only encourage more to come. It needs a realistic, humane policy for the millions already here illegally — including a pathway to citizenship for otherwise law-abiding people, especially those brought here as children. For all that, we need a functioning Congress to stop forever campaigning, and act in the nation's interests.